Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
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| Textual Feature | Appearance |
|---|---|
| passage deleted with a strikethrough mark | |
| passage deleted by overwritten added letters | |
| passage added above the line | passage with added text above |
| passage added on the line | passage with added text inline |
| passage added in the margin | passage with text added in margin |
| handwritten addition to a typewritten letter | typed passage with added handwritten text |
| missing or unreadable text | missing text noted with "[illegible]" |
| uncertain transcriptions | word[?] |
| notes written by someone other than Willa Cather | Note in another's hand |
| printed letterhead text | printed text |
| text printed on postcards, envelopes, etc. | printed text |
| text of date and place stamps | stamped text |
| passage written by Cather on separate enclosure. | written text |
please send this letter on to Roscoe4.
W. November 25, 1935. Dear Roscoe4 and Elsie3:This will be a report more than a letter. I simply want you to know where I am and why I haven't written. I got in2 ten days ago after a very rough passage. I always enjoy rough weather at sea, but Edith5 was really very ill all the way over. There was an excellent trained nurse on board who took splendid care of her, and I was free to enjoy the north Atlantic weather on a deck. As soon as we landed Edith had to go into the hospital for a slight operation. Only a few days before we left France6 she noticed a little lump in her shoulder. The very morning after we landed, before we had telephone connection, I set out in search of the surgeon who removed her appendix years ago. Three days later she went into the hospital and had the lump removed. It proved to be a perfectly harmless cyst with no malignant features, and she is now back in the apartment rapidly recovering from an operation under full anaesthetic. I have had my hands very full getting the apartment7 in order and housekeeping with a temporary maid. As you probably know, my splendid French Josephine8 who has been with me for so many years, whenever I kept house, went back to France with her husband9 and daughter10 last summer, about ten days before we sailed for Italy11. Her husband has been ill for a long time and longed to finish his days in his own village12 in the Pyrenees. Josephine is only forty-three years of age and when she first worked for me she was only twenty-three. She was not only a marvelous cook and manager, but one of the truest and inspiriting friends I have ever known. The loss of her is just one of those great losses that come to one in this life, but there is never a day I do not rejoice that she is back in her own glorious mountains, to live out her vigorous life in the country she loves so passionately.
In all the rush of hospitals and cleaners and business affairs, I did manage to get a letter off to Dean Lee13 for the Bishop's14 anniversary15. His manner of asking for it was not very gracious, and he may not see fit to have it read at the dinner. The truth is that Dean Lee seems to have a special grouch at the Bishop and a secondary grouch at me. If I ever get time, I want to write the Bishop a real letter, for both Elsie and Carrie16 know how much I love him and how proud I always feel of him. I have met a great many bishops, but not one of them looks the part and is the part like our own Bishop Beecher. I hope Carrie or Elsie will tell him how I really feel - you know I am rather bashful about expressing my admiration to the objects of it.
Lovingly to you all, Willie Dear Brother4—I should have sent this letter on long before this. But I have been pretty much under the weather of late and don't seem to get anything done.
Love, ElsieInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2120.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2120
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only. A handwritten note from Elsie to Roscoe is on the verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Elsie Cather and Roscoe Cather1
- Date letter was written
- November 25, 1935
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Roscoe and Meta Cather Collection (MS316), University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
570 Park Avenue (New York City): The apartment Cather shared with Edith Lewis from December 11, 1932, until her death, located in the Manhattan borough of New York City, near Central Park. They had apartment 7D. Lewis continued to live there until her own death.
Cather sent a letter to Reverend Francis R. Lee in honor of Bishop Beecher's twenty-fifth anniversary of his consecration as bishop (#1277).
Person Annotations
Cather, Elsie Margaret (1890-1964) (“Bobbie”). Cather’s
sister. Born in Red Cloud, NE, shortly before Willa Cather
graduated from high school, Elsie attended the University of Nebraska in
Lincoln from 1908 to 1910, before transferring to Smith College, in
Northampton, MA, from which she graduated with an A.B. in English and Latin
in 1912. She undertook graduate study at the University of Nebraska in 1914
and in 1916 received her A.M. with a major in philosophy and a minor in
English. At both the undergraduate and the graduate level at Nebraska, she
studied under Louise Pound. She began a career in high school teaching in
1912, when she took a position in Lander, WY, where her brother Roscoe then
lived with his family. She also taught in Albuquerque, NM; Corning, IA;
Cleveland, OH; and briefly Red Cloud, when illness in the family brought her
home. Her longest tenure as a teacher was at Lincoln (NE) High School, where
she began teaching in 1920, with Olivia Pound and Mariel Gere as colleagues.
Willa Cather's expectation that Elsie be responsible for aging family and
friends and for legal affairs after their parents' deaths sometimes brought
the sisters into conflict. Elsie Cather retired from Lincoln High School in
1942. She died in Lincoln.
Cather, Roscoe (1877-1945) (“Ross”). Cather’s brother.
Roscoe was born in Virginia, the second child and oldest son of
Charles and Virginia Cather. After graduating from Red Cloud (NE) High
School in 1895, he taught country school for two years, attended the
University of Nebraska in Lincoln for one year (1897-1898), taught high
school in Carlton, NE, and Oxford, NE, and finally became superintendent of
schools in Fullerton, NE. There he met fellow teacher Meta Schaper, whom he
married in 1907. They relocated to Lander, WY, in 1909, where he opened an
abstract office and where their three children, Virginia and twins Margaret
and Elizabeth, were born. In 1921, they moved to Casper, WY, where Roscoe
became president of the Wyoming Trust Company, and in 1937 to Colusa, CA,
where Roscoe and his brother Douglass had acquired a controlling interest in
the First Savings Bank of Colusa. Roscoe served as president of the bank
until his death. Willa visited Roscoe and his family in Wyoming several
times and shared important travel experiences with them, including a 1926
trip to New Mexico with Roscoe, Meta, and their children and a 1941 San
Francisco vacation with Roscoe and Meta. She also relied on him to handle
family-related business as well as personal financial matters, and he was
one of her chief correspondents throughout her life. Roscoe served as a
prototype for one of the twin brothers in the Templeton family in “Old Mrs.
Harris” (1932).
Cather, Elsie Margaret (1890-1964) (“Bobbie”). Cather’s
sister. Born in Red Cloud, NE, shortly before Willa Cather
graduated from high school, Elsie attended the University of Nebraska in
Lincoln from 1908 to 1910, before transferring to Smith College, in
Northampton, MA, from which she graduated with an A.B. in English and Latin
in 1912. She undertook graduate study at the University of Nebraska in 1914
and in 1916 received her A.M. with a major in philosophy and a minor in
English. At both the undergraduate and the graduate level at Nebraska, she
studied under Louise Pound. She began a career in high school teaching in
1912, when she took a position in Lander, WY, where her brother Roscoe then
lived with his family. She also taught in Albuquerque, NM; Corning, IA;
Cleveland, OH; and briefly Red Cloud, when illness in the family brought her
home. Her longest tenure as a teacher was at Lincoln (NE) High School, where
she began teaching in 1920, with Olivia Pound and Mariel Gere as colleagues.
Willa Cather's expectation that Elsie be responsible for aging family and
friends and for legal affairs after their parents' deaths sometimes brought
the sisters into conflict. Elsie Cather retired from Lincoln High School in
1942. She died in Lincoln.
Cather, Roscoe (1877-1945) (“Ross”). Cather’s brother.
Roscoe was born in Virginia, the second child and oldest son of
Charles and Virginia Cather. After graduating from Red Cloud (NE) High
School in 1895, he taught country school for two years, attended the
University of Nebraska in Lincoln for one year (1897-1898), taught high
school in Carlton, NE, and Oxford, NE, and finally became superintendent of
schools in Fullerton, NE. There he met fellow teacher Meta Schaper, whom he
married in 1907. They relocated to Lander, WY, in 1909, where he opened an
abstract office and where their three children, Virginia and twins Margaret
and Elizabeth, were born. In 1921, they moved to Casper, WY, where Roscoe
became president of the Wyoming Trust Company, and in 1937 to Colusa, CA,
where Roscoe and his brother Douglass had acquired a controlling interest in
the First Savings Bank of Colusa. Roscoe served as president of the bank
until his death. Willa visited Roscoe and his family in Wyoming several
times and shared important travel experiences with them, including a 1926
trip to New Mexico with Roscoe, Meta, and their children and a 1941 San
Francisco vacation with Roscoe and Meta. She also relied on him to handle
family-related business as well as personal financial matters, and he was
one of her chief correspondents throughout her life. Roscoe served as a
prototype for one of the twin brothers in the Templeton family in “Old Mrs.
Harris” (1932).
Lewis, Edith Labaree (1881-1972). Magazine editor,
advertising copywriter, and Cather's domestic partner. Born in
Lincoln, NE, to Henry Euclid Lewis and Lillie Gould Lewis, Edith Lewis
attended the preparatory school associated with the University of Nebraska,
earning college credits from the University before transferring to Smith
College in Northampton, MA, in 1899. She received an A.B. in English from
Smith in 1902 and returned home to teach elementary school. She met Willa
Cather in the summer of 1903 at the home of Sarah Harris, publisher of the
Lincoln Courier. Moving to New York City soon
afterward, Lewis settled into a studio on Washington Square and found work
at the Century Publishing Company. Cather was her guest when she visited the
city from Pittsburgh. In 1906, at Cather's suggestion, Lewis applied for a
position as an editorial proofreader at McClure's
Magazine, and the two women worked together on the McClure's staff for six years. In 1908, they moved
into a shared apartment at 82 Washington Place, and then, in 1912, to Five
Bank Street. Lewis left McClure's in 1915 to become
managing editor of Every Week Magazine, where she
stayed until the magazine folded in 1918. In 1919 she began a long career as
an advertising copywriter at the J. Walter Thompson Co. In 1926 Edith Lewis
acquired the land on which she and Cather built their cottage on Grand Manan
Island. When they lost their apartment on Bank Street to subway construction
in 1927, they shared quarters at the Grosvenor Hotel when they were both in
New York City. In 1932 they took an apartment at 570 Park Avenue. Throughout
their relationship, Lewis was closely involved in Cather's creative process,
reading and editing her work in pre-publication forms. Cather's will
appointed Lewis as executor of her literary estate and a beneficiary of her
literary trust. Lewis authorized E.K. Brown as Cather's first biographer and
published her own memoir of Cather, Willa Cather
Living (1953). She remained in their Park Avenue apartment after
Cather's death and died there after a long period of illness and invalidism.
She is buried at Cather's side in Jaffrey, NH.
Bourda, Joséphine Marie Bernardine Brun (1892-1959). Cather’s maid. Raised in Lourdes in the Pyrénées region of France, Joséphine’s father Jean-Marie Brun ran a restaurant. In 1909 she married Alphonse Bourda, and they had two children, Marie, born 1910, and Clémentine, born 1912. In 1913 Joséphine, Alphonse, and Joséphine’s father immigrated to the U.S., leaving Marie and Clémentine behind with relatives. Alphonse and Joséphine’s third child, Jeanette, was born in New York City in late 1913. Soon after, Joséphine found work cooking and keeping house for Willa Cather and Edith Lewis in their Five Bank Street apartment. In 1919 the Bourda family was reunited in New York and Joséphine stopped working, but by late 1921, she was back working half days until sometime after 1925. She resumed working for Cather and Lewis in 1932 when they moved to a new apartment at 570 Park Avenue, but in 1935, she and her husband decided to return to France because of his failing health. Cather considered Joséphine a personal friend and praised her as “an artist in her way” (#0563). Cather and Bourda evidently corresponded after her return to France but their letters have not surfaced. She died in the village of Saint Pé de Bigorre.
Bourda, Alphonse (1880-1938). Husband of Joséphine Bourda. Born in Nay, France, Alphonse Bourda married Joséphine Brun in 1909. The couple moved to New York City in 1913, living with Joséphine's father. They had three daughters. The family returned to France in 1935, when Alphonse's health began to fail. He died in 1938 and was buried in the village of Saint Pé de Bigorre. Though Joséphine Bourda worked for Cather and Edith Lewis for many years, it is unclear if Cather ever met Alphonse Bourda.
Bourda, Jeanette (1913-?). Daughter of Joséphine and Alphonse Bourda.Born in New York City the same year her parents arrived in the city, shortly before her mother began working for Cather and Lewis, Jeanette Bourda returned to France with her parents in 1935. She married, had three children, and died in Saint Pé de Bigorre. Though Jeannette's mother Joséphine Bourda worked for Cather and Edith Lewis for many years, it is unclear if Cather ever met Jeanette Bourda.
Lee, Rev. Francis R. (1880-1940). American Episcopal priest. Born in Lee Hall, VA, Francis Lee received his divinity degree in 1906 and served churches in Virginia and Ohio before becoming Dean of the Pro-Cathedral at Hastings, NE, in 1926; his responsibilities included ministering to Grace Church in Red Cloud, NE, the church that Cather and her parents joined in 1922. Lee retired in 1940 and died later the same year in Richmond, VA.
Beecher, George Allen (1868-1951). Western Nebraska Episcopal Bishop.
Born in Illinois, Beecher moved with his family to Kearney, NE, at
age 14. He studied for the Episcopal priesthood at the Philadelphia (PA)
Divinity School, graduating in 1892, and then spent fifty-one years in
Nebraska as a deacon, priest, and finally Bishop of the Missionary District
of Western Nebraska. Willa Cather met him in Red Cloud, NE, in December 1922
when he presided at her and her parents’ confirmation as members of Grace
Episcopal Church. She and Bishop Beecher corresponded frequently
thereafter.
Sherwood, Carrie Miner (1869-1971). Sherwood, Carrie Belle
Miner (1869-1972) Civic leader; Cather's friend. Born in Waukon,
IA, to James L. Miner and Julia Erickson Miner, Carrie Miner was the eldest
of their children. The family moved to Red Cloud, NE, in 1878, where the
Miner Brothers store became the largest in town. Cather remembered meeting
Carrie there. In 1884, Carrie, her mother, and siblings were confirmed in
the Catholic church. In 1888, she studied music at St. Mary’s Academy at
Notre Dame, IN. She married bank clerk Walter Sherwood in late 1889; they
had two sons. The Sherwoods travelled often in the West, and visited Europe
in 1930. They built a new house at 3rd and Seward streets in Red Cloud in
1908; Cather sometimes sent materials for Carrie to keep in its spacious
attics. Carrie Miner Sherwood led local Red Cross work during the two World
Wars, served on the Red Cloud school board and park commission, and was
active in the League of Women Voters and in the Ladies Guild of Grace
Episcopal Church. Cather corresponded with Carrie Miner Sherwood throughout
her life and dedicated My Ántonia to Carrie, model
for Frances Harling in the novel, and her sister Irene. Carrie was one of
Mildred Bennett’s chief sources for The World of Willa
Cather (1951), and was instrumental in setting up what is now the
Willa Cather Foundation in Red Cloud.
Place Annotations
